Monocle Gateway Prerequisites

Below are a number of requirements/prerequsites that must be met to install and use the Monocle Gateway service. Please read the prerequsites carefully to help avoid erros and further troubleshooting as you try to install and configure the Monocle Gateway service.

Availability

The Monocle Gateway runs in the background as a system service and thus should run 24x7 to be available at anytime to handle Alexa requests. If your computer goes to sleep or is suspended, then the Monocle Gateway will not be available during those periods.

Network Acessibility

The Monocle Gateway must listen on port 443. Unfortunately this is a strict requirement/limitations by Amazon where certain Alexa devices will not connect to endpoints on other ports.

Internet Access

The Monocle Gateway must be able to communicate out to the Internet. The Monocle Gateway communicates to the Monocle API servers securely via HTTPS connections on port 443. No inbound access is required; thus no Internet gateway firewall exceptions or NAT rules need to be defined for any inbound acesss.

Firewall Exceptions

The Monocle Gateway must be able to listen and accept connections on port 443 locally on your network. (Not from the Internet). If a local firewall is installed and running on the system where you have installed the Moncle Gateway service, please make sure that port 443 is ALLOWED for Monocle Gateway.

Operating Systems

The Monocle Gateway can be installed on any of the following systems:

Windows (x86/x64) - Windows 7 and later.

Mac OSX (x64) - Version 10.13.6 "High Sierra" or later.

Linux (x86/x64) - Debian based distribution with systemd.

Linux (ARMv7/ARM64) - Debian based distribution with systemd.

RaspberryPi - Model 3B/3B+ is preferred. It's highly suggested to use a model with a dedicated physical ethernet port.

Camera Tagging

To use a camera configured via the Monocle Web Portal with the Monocle Gateway, you must first TAG the camera with a special tag to let the system know how to route your camera requests. Please see topic Tagging Cameras for Monocle Gateway for more details.

DNS Rebinding

Some advanced network routers/Internet gatways implement a protection scheme that block DNS Rebinding. Basically any public DNS record that resolves to a private IP address gets blocked if DNS Rebinding is enabled. Monocle Gateway creates a public DNS record for your Monocle Gateway instance and resolves it to the private IP address of the system you are running on. If your network router/Internet gatway is blocking these DNS records, you will need to create a DNS exception for the DNS hostname used with your Monocle Gateway instance. Please see topic DNS Rebinding for more details.